Is Your Fatigue Coming From Internalized Pressure? with Stacy S. Hirsch, MES, CMT-P - #158

Is Your Fatigue Coming From Internalized Pressure? with Stacy S. Hirsch, MES, CMT-P - #158

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Hey everybody, welcome back to the energy MD podcast. I'm Evan Hirsch and we help you resolve your long COVID and chronic fatigue syndrome by resolving the real root causes, which are a combination of what I call the toxic five, a combination of heavy metals, chemicals, molds, infections, and nervous system dysfunction. So you can get back to living your best life. So I'm really excited today because we're going to be interviewing Stacy Hirsch, special friend of mine.

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And also my wife, and, we're going to be talking all about pressure. If you've heard me speak before about nervous system dysfunction as being a major cause of a chronic fatigue syndrome and long COVID, you know that, um, working on your mental and emotional health is really important. So Stacy specializes in this. So I've asked her to come on today and share with us all about pressure. And so let's learn a little bit about Stacy.

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So she has a trauma informed leadership coach, NARM trained practitioner and mindfulness teacher with over 25 years of experience across nonprofit, public and private sectors. She supports individuals and organizations in cultivating resilience, navigating complexity and fostering more compassionate, inclusive cultures. Through her work with Life Takes Practice and the Athena Group, Stacey integrates a range of mindfulness, restorative and somatic practices in her work.

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to help people lead and connect with more authenticity and intention. Her core focus is helping people develop greater intimacy with themselves and others as a path to deeper healing and sustainable growth. This commitment is rooted in her own recovery from chronic fatigue syndrome, which she healed by addressing the emotional roots of illness. Stacey's guiding philosophy, making the uncomfortable meaningful, runs through all of her work.

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A long time meditator, she has facilitated a free Saturday morning meditation group for over five years and facilitates Dear Ayana, a four day expressive writing workshop where participants explore the relational space. She loves traveling, self-care rituals and spending time with her family. And you can learn more about her at lifetakespractice.com. Stacy, thanks so much for joining me today. Thanks for having me. So.

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Recently, you led a DeRionna workshop that I attended called Unraveling Patterns of Pressure. Can you tell us more about what inspired that theme? Sure. I think it's something that I've been working on myself for a really long time, not only studying it, but really trying to understand how pressure, internalized pressure operates in my life. And so,

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For those who attend the weekly meditation, I often will instruct to just notice if you're efforting or pressuring. But I was starting to realize that not everyone really understood what that meant. And it's kind of designed that way. It's often invisible. It's often really hard to see the ways that we self-pressure and where that comes from. just, know, Duryana is all about exploring the relational space. It's all about exploring through writing.

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And I thought it would be a great opportunity for people to have their own exploration of pressure and especially ways that we pressure ourselves. So ways they pressure themselves in their life and then maybe get a little bit of freedom from that pressure, a little bit of space, a little bit of insight so that they don't have to live that way. That would be such a gift, right? To live life without pressure. And how does

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How does pressure affect negatively affect our nervous systems?

03:57

Yeah, it's probably if people understand what we're talking about, you know, when we talk about pressure, it's probably useful to start there. And so there's external pressure. So pressure that's coming from external sources, like demands or expectations that are placed on us from outside forces, other people, institutions, cultural norms. So there's pressure that comes from the outside. So for instance,

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Maybe an employer that expects you to meet certain expectations that are unrealistic. It can also be in how parents communicate with children directly or indirectly. Maybe there's a message that gets received by the child that loves earned through achievement. There's certain things like you bring home a good grade, we celebrate, we give you love. If you don't, then you don't receive that. That's external pressure to get a good grade.

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But there's the ways that we internalize that from the times when we were younger. And so it turns into more of a self-imposed demand to meet those internalized expectations that we now have. And this often happens beyond our conscious awareness. So there may be an inner critic that says, you should be doing more. There's more things you should be doing. If you're not, then you're lazy. Maybe it's if I relax.

05:20

have downtime, I create spaciousness in my life, then I'll lose everything I've worked so hard for. And sometimes that we're aware of it, it's operating, it's a script that operates within us. And other times it's just a way of being. It's something we identify, this is just who I am. And so it's kind of, it's woven into the fabric of who we are. And so we don't question it. And so when you ask the question about how can this...

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impact the nervous system. When we do that enough, we're constantly overriding the nervous system. And potentially, as I knew or learned in my own experience of fatigue, you know, I was always living beyond what I call the tipping point. So I wasn't in my optimal zone where I could have the right amount of capacity to match the need, whatever I needed in the moment. It was always living beyond my capacity. And so everything was coming from more of that fight, flight.

06:17

freeze, Juan, and not really freeze because often that's a collapsed state. That's where I ended up with fatigue. So living in a way that we're constantly overriding our nervous system, you've probably talked on here many times how that depletes our resources. It's a constant push on our stress hormones and eventually we become depleted.

06:39

Yeah, ever since we did that Duryana, I've been thinking about, you when I go to do a task or I'm thinking about, I pushing through, right? You how am I, how am I feeling in the moment? Am I tired? Do I have good energy? Is there, if there's something that I want that I don't want to do, am I actually pushing through it? So I definitely think that I would say that probably it seems like the first step in this process is

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is mindfulness or noticing. know that you've talked about before is noticing being a superpower. Can you talk a little bit about that in the context of pressure? Yeah, absolutely. I think that one, what you said about you're trying to notice more often and we can at the end of this, we can offer a few little challenges, things people can take into their life to see how pressure might be operating. I think that the.

07:34

The other piece of it is...

07:40

Awareness is the first step because we have to start, we have to, I think it's even mindset. Like we want to be able to look for this and be willing to look for it just to try it on. Like, is this something you don't have to believe right now? And you might even be questioning like, well, how am going to get anything done if I don't pressure myself? That's a good, that's a good place to start. You know, like examine that, you know, be with that a little bit.

08:07

But awareness is definitely the first step. We want to be able to notice when there are demands that arise and how they feel in our body. So what does that feel like in our body when a demand arises? And it could be something where sensing that's coming from outside of ourselves, it could be something like maybe an internal thing like I have to get these 20 things done on my list today.

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So the first step is to notice. Notice what that feels like. Notice what it's like for you. So awareness is really that first piece.

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And we can go into other steps once you're noticing, then can you get curious? And gently curious, not forcefully, but questioning, why is this demand or pressure here? What is it trying to protect or what is it trying to do? So can I be curious about that? And to understand that piece, we can go back in and really understand the cycle.

09:12

Like where pressure begins when we're younger and how that gets carried forward. And then we can come back into, you what does it mean to unravel? Okay, great. Yeah. So, so maybe we should go there next. So you talked about curiosity and then, so were you saying that, that having that curiosity about where that comes from?

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from our family systems and from our past as children, is that what you were referring to?

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Yeah, so we wanna look at, I mentioned the curiosity, like what is this trying to protect? So self-pressure as a form of protection. If we go back into early life experience, we might recall a moment or moments where we begin to feel that for whatever reason that being ourself isn't enough. There's something in the environment that says how you're showing up isn't enough. It could be with a peer group, it's often with caregivers.

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And then we have a thought about that. We have a feeling about that. And so we might create a belief that we must perform or behave in a certain way to belong, you know, to be part of the tribe or group, a family to be accepted or to be loved. And that becomes a strategy that we then use. So that self pressure becomes protection because if we feel like for whatever reason, you know,

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showing up as we are isn't enough, then we're going to engage that strategy. And that's just that automatic way of being to avoid feeling the pain or the fear of not belonging, of not being safe or not being protected. So we use that strategy to stay safe. And then we might create another belief. If I try harder, if I get it right, I'll fit in. I won't stick out or it'll help us to be safe or avoid rejection.

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Shame is a big one. And then that just becomes that internalized belief and that's why it's so invisible as adults. So now it's like we have these repeated patterns of pressure there in our environment and those become core beliefs that we carry forward and then it becomes part of our identity. We don't really always remember it. I mean, sometimes we will absolutely remember it, but sometimes it's the more subtle things that happen in our environment and we don't remember because we've now taken it on as this is who I am.

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And so, you know, one thing that I really had to work to overcome after fatigue was part of, you know, part of the belief that I had internalized was resting meant that I was lazy. It meant that I was lazy. had a grandfather that was super active, you know, and had lots of things to say about being lazy. And so I thought being active and getting a million things done a day meant that, I mean, as my adult self, I thought that was like a really great way to be.

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but really what I was protecting myself against that pain of not belonging or not fitting in. And then there's ways in our environment that that just gets reinforced. And so then we kind of, it produces proof that we have to keep pushing in order to stay safe, belong, and we don't question it. So that's why what you said about noticing and the awareness is such a big piece. It can be really liberating to start noticing.

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these ways that this happens. And so, you know, if that pressure feels so familiar, even necessary, then we're not going to question it. But if we can create a practice to question it, then we can interrupt it.

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I've heard that sometimes we have to change our identity in order to resolve chronic fatigue. Do you feel like you had to go through that? Well, I wouldn't say we have to change our identity because it makes it sound like that's that's a efforting, that's a pressuring. But I would say that often when we start to gently and that was that second step, you know, with compassion.

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If we can start to question, you know, the different demands that are coming up and how we feel about them, we can get in touch with it, we can feel it in the body, we have an emotional experience of it. You know, if we can have that awareness and that curiosity that we will start to see ourselves in new ways. So that it doesn't come from a demand or pressure that you're doing something wrong, but it comes from that connection with what you need.

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connection with your true self. Yeah, and I guess

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I guess it's the idea that we have to change the way that we see ourselves, change the way that we see the world, right? Oftentimes there's a big safety challenge that people have when they have chronic fatigue. At some point, their nervous system believed that the world was not a safe place and started to try to protect itself. So you talked about awareness and then moving into

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questioning with compassion and curiosity. What would be the next step after that?

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Without going through unraveling. Yeah, yeah. So yeah, awareness. So that's the noticing when the demands arrives. Curiosity is the gentle questioning and being really curious. What is this demand that I have of myself trying to protect? And then checking in with our bodies, not trying to get somewhere. We're not pressuring to get somewhere, but just the noticing. What am I trying to protect? It's a vulnerable practice. And there's often emotion.

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that's right there and we have to decide like, am I in a place where I can experience that? I in a place where I can turn towards that? Sometimes we're not. And so the next step is compassion. So we meet the patterns of pressure with kindness. We recognize that they're there because it's our nervous system's way of ensuring survival, because survival really comes, we're wired to be in connection. so.

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we want to have connection and so we're protecting those things that we feel might take us out of connection. So the compassion is really, I meet this pattern of protection, this pattern of pressure with kindness? And if I'm not ready, the noticing is maybe I can't take all of this in, especially if you're struggling a lot with symptoms, if you're very symptomatic right now. This work is, you need to titrate it to really

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meet you where you're at. It's not just notice. And I know this because I didn't have some of this experience when I went through my fatigue journey. It was 20 years ago and I didn't titrate anything. I was always diving head in because that's that was kind of the pattern that got me into fatigue. And so I didn't know how to titrate but now I recognize the wisdom of titrating, taking on just you know the right amount for us wherever we are in our journey.

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And oftentimes we can identify that through the sensations that we're experiencing, right? Yeah. We can use that as a guide. And if it's like too much, then we can kind of back off or choose to, to, to feel it another day. Is that accurate? Yeah. So I like to ask people to just, you know, do a scan, you know, check in and start to create that.

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habit of checking in and asking yourself where you are. You some days are better than others. Some days we have more capacity, nervous system capacity than other days. And so, you know, some days are more, we're more ready for an exploration that's a little deeper and other days, maybe not. And, and trusting our own wisdom, the wisdom of our system. And I think, you know, over time, we can start to see that that's really true, that some days we're more grounded.

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We'll feel more connected and we have more capacity to dig into some of these maybe more challenging pieces and other days, you know, our work is really just to feel connected, you know, to maybe we're just feeling our feet on the ground. You know, we can't take in much more. We have to really make our life smaller because our symptoms are bigger. So yeah, it's definitely.

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checking in with ourselves. And that's personal intimacy part that you mentioned in my bio is getting to know yourself and noticing, you know, that you can create a pathway that supports your growth and healing and it doesn't have to be pressure filled.

18:16

Yeah, I oftentimes think as I'm doing this work that I have to be doing certain things. You know, I I have, I do like structure and I do like working through a process. But I think that one of the things that you taught me coming back to the compassion piece is that, you know, if you're feeling that overwhelm in the system, you know, you're, you're questioning, you're, being curious about the sensations that you're experiencing. If it's a lot.

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or even if it's not, or you're just experiencing sensations maybe in a different way that you've taught me to kind of like put my hand over my heart and to like soothe myself and to, you know, I tell, I say, Hey, little Evan, you're going to be okay. You know, like right now that you're experiencing, you're feeling a lot of really intense sensations, but you're going to be okay. Is that a proper use of compassion?

19:14

Absolutely. And so along the lines of self compassion. And I think that, you know, people relate differently, you know, they need different things, but hand over the heart is can be really helpful hand on the belly, feeling feet on the ground or the earth. And then and then having that conversation with yourself. That's the intimacy piece is like, can we do that? And sometimes when we first start doing it, feels silly. But there is a younger part in there.

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you there is a younger part, however you want to work with that, there's a younger part inside of you and sometimes you're bringing forward material from the past into the present and if you can have that intimacy where you can interact with it, there is a lot of healing available in that. Like being able to be, to show up for yourself in a way that maybe your environment wasn't able to, you know, caregiver or your...

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or know, whoever, when you're younger, wasn't able to show up for whatever reason. And in that, in the adult moment, something's getting pulled up and you have that opportunity to show up and to be there. And sometimes that's all it takes for it to dissolve, you know, for it to, it's when we meet it. And that's what, in my bio you mentioned, you know, making the uncomfortable meaningful. And it's really about meeting the discomfort, whatever it is, and just being with it.

20:42

So just sitting with it. And even that compassion can come out in words, can come out in actions, but it's an ability to sit with yourself. And that's often what shifts things.

21:02

Yeah, that's been really interesting for me as part of my journey. I've been utilizing, know, plant medicine has been a big part of this for me where it provides so much sensation that I have to, like, I'm kind of forced to sit with and work with and breathe through. And I think that it kind of teaches my nervous system that I'm going to be okay, that I can survive uncomfortable sensations.

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And then when I come out into my life again and I experienced an uncomfortable sensation, it's easier for me to be like, oh, you know, I've experienced that before. It's kind of, it kind of creates a new template, you know, of sensation. Any thoughts on that?

21:52

Yeah, I think that you're just that language shift a little that the plant medicine isn't doing it, you're doing it. Like the plant medicine is what's creating the discomfort, but you've chosen to do that and you are the one learning to sit with it. And therefore you're able to bring that out of that experience. I think sometimes for people discomfort, it gets confusing and we want to project it onto others and make it someone else's fault.

22:20

What I've seen with the plant medicine is that it gives you, it's something you're choosing, something that a person is choosing. And when discomfort arises, there's not a place to place it. So you kind of have to sit with it. You're not discarding it or projecting it. You're really sitting with it. And then yeah, you bring that out of the experience with you. Like that, I've done that now. I understand how to.

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work with discomfort in a new way. And I'm willing to try it on when I feel a similar discomfort in the real world or back in my life. Yeah, my patterns in the past, as you know, have been when I experienced discomfort to blame it on somebody else who caused that discomfort, right? Because let's say you say something or you do something and I feel discomfort from it.

23:15

Um, you know, you did this to me as opposed to now when I'm experiencing, Oh gosh, there's so much sensation. It's kind of overwhelming. How do I go through the process that you've just described and how do I notice it? How do I sit with it? How do I have compassion for it? How can I meet it? And, and I don't have to fix it. You know, I think part of, you know, one of the things that we teach in the program as part of the nervous system retraining component is the mindset component.

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which are things that you can do. And some of that is when you, you know, identifying the negative thoughts and if it's not serving you, then flipping it into an empowering thought or empowering belief. If you're thinking negative questions, flipping them into empowering, that's different than the simplicity of what you're talking about here, which is just meeting the sensation, meeting the emotion with compassion and with love and just sitting in.

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sitting there you don't have to do anything else. Yeah. You can ask yourself is this okay? Is it okay for me to to touch this right now? To touch this emotion? To sit with this emotion? So you still have an out if it's not you know some people aren't ready to but but I think it's very inclusive practice and I think about this a lot because of the work I do in organizations and with culture you know building healthier cultures. I think that

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you know, we have to be able to learn how to accept and include everything that we experience in ourselves. And so if we experience discomfort, you know, but we can't work with it, what does that look like? Then we go into a workplace. And so we, lot of people want less polarization, more peace. It begins really with the practice of how do you relate to, you know, discomfort, strong emotion,

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how do you hold these things for yourself? And if there's something that comes up, a shame response, can you make space for it within yourself? If we can't do it for ourselves when we're doing this work, it's going to be much harder to do it in our families and in our workplaces and our communities. And so when I look at inclusivity, belonging, those types of things, it really starts here with this cultivating personal intimacy.

25:40

And so it seems like that first part is kind of understanding the internal pressure and having some more awareness around it and how we're internally pressuring ourselves. And then there's the context with the outer environment. So I know you talk a lot about the relational space. So there's other people who have expectations of you, you your partner who you've been living with, you know, for 20 years, your kids.

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your boss or your employees or whoever else is in your sphere, it can be hard to start to make these changes because of that external environment. How do you suggest that people go about navigating that?

26:29

Yeah, well, I think the first three steps we've talked about, you know, noticing the more we can notice what's happening, the more we can be curious and be in a curious state. And the more compassion and self-compassion we have. So compassion outward, self-compassion inward. It gives us more choice. so choice is the fourth step that's practicing choice. And I don't know that you were leading us there, but it just seems really perfect. And it's just practicing new ways of responding, even if it's even if they're small steps that you're taking.

26:58

And so really, you know, recognizing that there's a space between what's happening outside of us and what happens within us. And so this awareness and curiosity and compassion can create that space. That's why we do the meditation practice every Saturday. We're working to create more inner space, know, space within so that we can start to relate to our experiences with more, you know, awareness, compassion, more agency, more choice.

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rather than leaning back on those functional strategies. So the strategies that we've been using to protect something. And so, you know, I think that the more we can understand how pressure operates inside of us, the more we'll recognize when there's a demand or something coming externally, because that external demand will touch something within you. And if you haven't worked that muscle yet, then you're just going to fall into that functional strategy.

27:57

So, you know, the more we start to understand how we pressure ourselves and how to do something like a small step to do it differently, then if something comes in from externally and starts to kind of poke on that part of us that's sensitive and wants to maybe say yes when we mean no, we'll have a little more capacity to say no and to not feel like it's going to mean a loss of attachment, loss of friendship, and doesn't mean something about who we are.

28:25

It's more of just practicing a healthy no in that example. Yeah, loss of attachment is a big one for me. Oftentimes, you know, when I feel discomfort and I want to have a conversation with somebody, I'm very concerned about that loss of attachment. So I guess it probably takes a little bit of courage in order to be able to make that choice and express things to others.

28:53

Yeah, I thinking, I think a lot of the healing work, growth work, transformation work, know, a lot of it requires courage. And that, you know, the oftentimes that means that we're doing these things while feeling uncomfortable. You know that, but sometimes we think we're, if we're feeling uncomfortable, we're not getting it right. Or it's not working.

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or I'm not getting there. There's a lot of those kinds of conversations. But I think that it's often uncomfortable. This work can be uncomfortable, but it can also, there are these moments where that discomfort meets what I like to talk about as a feeling of awe, where you just feel like you can experience all of it. can experience the great discomfort, the fear, and also the beauty and the humanity. And I think

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Having moments of that where you can touch into our shared humanity. That's what keeps me going is having moments like that. And that's what Dear Ayana is. The four day writing workshop that I lead, Ayana stands for, is an acronym for, and you are not alone. And it's this piece of recognizing our shared humanity that we all struggle. We have discomfort, we have fear, and there's a way of turning towards it to feel more connected.

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to feel more compassionate, to feel more alive. And so I think it does take some courage, but I think the rewards can be pretty amazing. Yeah, it seems like, you know, when people start to do this work that potentially they have to give the people in their life a heads up. Like, hey, things are shifting for me now, you know, and I may be saying no more often.

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I think that, you know, I know that there's, there's a quote, it goes something like, you know, successful people say no a lot and really successful people say no all the time. And a lot of that is because you're saying yes to other things, but some of it has to do with having awareness, like what we're talking about and saying no to things that aren't serving us, whether it's internal pressure or something else. How do you, how do you incorporate no?

31:17

into this process. Yeah well, no is a boundary and so it's boundary work so really understanding your boundaries. I also want to be really clear that you know if we we get into the larger cultural pieces and just how our world is set up that there are there many people who there's real life things they can't say no to you know like

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deadlines, taking care of kids, know, working multiple jobs. Like there are a lot of things like survival is, it can be tough for many people and the way our world is set up. And so not to discount that. But I think the know that we're talking about here is there are lots of people who could say no more often, who could have better boundaries and understanding our patterns of pressure can help us.

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put in healthy boundaries and it can feel clunky, you know, it can feel hard. Like you said, maybe I need to have a conversation with people and let them know I'm doing this work and maybe that's a way to do it. I think when we learn to speak from our inner truth and like what we know ourselves to need, that we can hold that boundary both lightly in terms of we don't have to have a lot of heavy emotion around it, but also firm.

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So can be firm, with a lot of lightness around, it's just what it is. It's just, this is my no. And that does take a little practice to get there. And so maybe it is having some conversations. It just depends on the individual or its practice. Maybe it's starting with people where the attachment or the connection isn't in question, but where you have a deep relationship and it's been time tested and.

33:12

You know, so there's different ways to explore those, those boundaries. I think we have to do it in community because of, you know, the healing happens in relational spaces. And there's ways to, you know, start to get there through awareness, curiosity, and compassion. Those, those, you know, first three steps, you can do that on your own. And, and then as you step into choice and agency more, and you step into more relational spaces where you.

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um, are trying on new things, you know, you can determine when and how to do that. Yeah. It seems like it's, um, it's a little bit of a two step process where you do your internal work and then you have this relationship with the outside world and other people. I know you and I have kind of joked, you know, that you can go sit on a mountain top and the meditation is going to be hard, but it's very different than trying to

34:12

Um, you know, meditate or being mindful in relationship to others. Yeah. I think it's, you know, like programs like yours that have the community aspect. It's really important. Uh, you know, we have our, um, the weekly meditation group and that's community focused. Um, I think if you can find a community that you feel connected with and it feels supportive or multiple, you know, you might have multiple communities.

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that's the best way to go about doing any of this work. so finding, that's why people I think have really responded to finding different groups online, different communities through the internet. It's just really helpful to have people that you can do this work with.

35:02

Yeah, and I really appreciate you sharing your gifts with the people in our program, in the EnergyMD program, the meditations and the Dharayana and everything else that you contribute to. been, I think, I mean, it's been a great learning opportunity for me and I think for so many people that it's not, I used to talk all about how it was all about the heavy metals, chemicals, molds and infections.

35:28

And I didn't realize how important the nervous system dysfunction and the emotional healing needed to be. And you taught me that. thank you. Yeah. A couple more questions before I let you go. One of your businesses is Life Takes Practice. And you had mentioned practice before when we were kind of, when you were talking about Sanano and boundaries and whatnot. Can you talk about how practice fits into everything that we're discussing today?

35:55

Sure. mean, for me, this is a bit with this topic in particular, it's a bit of the mindset. And so it's just that commitment to the noticing. So noticing your patterns of pressure and a little bit of a belief that there is something there. There is something here that I have for me to discover. And so that's a practice in and of itself. Same with what we've talked about, the curiosity.

36:23

the compassion and then the recognizing those times and those moments when you have choice. And we can get into a few more of these opportunities to kind of look at that, to challenge that. But I think in and of itself, that is a practice. Those four steps is a practice. There's other things we may do, other practices we may do where the story I like to tell is noticing around the time that I...

36:50

began to have symptoms of fatigue many years ago. I was doing quite a bit, running a business, I had employees, I was working on my fixer upper, but I was also putting in a full garden, running a marathon, and doing all these things that I felt were healthy, but from a place of pressure. So was teaching three yoga classes a week, I was trying to do my meditation practice every day.

37:19

but it was all from a place of pressure. And so even the really healthy things in our life we can do from a place of pressure. And so the practice is to really, to see how much this shows up in your life. If you want a few, know, reflections or challenges to look at, I have a few. One would be do something unproductive that brings you joy.

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See how that shows up like and and just start with the words that I said, you know, I'm inviting you to do something unproductive that brings you joy and then notice what arises. And when I say notice like you might have a physical sensation like a clenching like in your chest like no you might have an ah like ah, yeah, that sounds great. There maybe there's less around pressure there. You might have a thought that says I don't have time for that, you know, so you want to look

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at what arises. Change your mind and let it be okay. That's another one. So what arises in you when you hear that? Say no without explanation. Where's the pressure on that for you? Let a task be unfinished on purpose. That one maybe brought you to your knees,

38:43

I don't know you're talking about. You can ask yourself, is this pressure still serving me? Maybe it's something that's been in our lives for a long time. Is it still serving me? Cancel or reschedule something you said yes to out of obligation. Because that obligation is often something like, it's a pressure. I need to do this in order to. There's something there. It doesn't mean you can't go. It doesn't mean you can't do it. But let's have that aware.

39:12

kind of awakened conversation with ourselves. Ask for help even if it feels uncomfortable. That's a practice.

39:23

Say I don't know and let that be enough.

39:28

And I think that's when you excel at. might not feel, Evan, you might not feel a lot of pressure there, but you're pretty good at that one. But other people, could be really challenging. So just trying things on.

39:43

You want more? are great. think, I think people get some, uh, I'll get some good practice with that without efforting, but yeah, I'm thinking about, know, like sitting on the couch on the weekend and being like, okay, I've got this list of chores that I want to get done and being like, okay, and can I just sit here? And what does that feel like? Am I feeling, you know, am I judging myself? Am I feeling lazy? Am I feeling like I need to be doing something else?

40:12

Um, and just seeing what arises and going through that process that you talked about and having that compassion. Yeah. And then choice, it ends in choice. So having the awareness, being curious about it, being compassionate wherever you land and then recognize that you still have choice. And that choice could be, I'm going to do it anyway today. And the other, you know, the choice could also be, I recognize I have choice. I'm going to do it. Or I recognize I have choice and I actually don't want to do it. So.

40:42

that the choice piece, that agency is like, we're doing it to ourselves and we need to name that. And there's, like I said earlier, there's many instances where, and I feel this too, where maybe I have a deadline and I have a lot of work and I can't get it done. And so have to work a weekend because I have to get it done and people are counting on me and I need to have it by Tuesday. But I'm in that conversation with myself and I'm

41:11

asking myself, you know, how can I do it in a way that still protects my nervous system, like cares for my nervous system and gets whatever this has done. So that means maybe I have to say no to a number of other things. Maybe I need to have conversation with my partner, my daughter. Maybe I build in more breaks to do something fun. But is there a way I can get this done? And there is some pressure.

41:38

external and internal because I want to do a good job. But I'm in conversation. Now it's more, I'm more empowered around it instead of it being something I can't see and I'm in it's kind of having an impact on my nervous system that I don't even recognize.

41:58

And that piece around if we're constantly doing this, then we're constantly past our optimal engagement zone. We're past that tipping point. And then those stress hormones, like that internal pressure will produce those stress hormones. It'll release those stress hormones.

42:15

And what I often say about my fatigue was, you know, there may have, my system was operating well until I kept upping the demands and I kept increasing the demands and not recognizing it. And my fatigue really, I believe, started with the nervous system dysregulation. And that allowed for all the other things that allowed for a buildup of toxins that allowed for, you know, making me more susceptible to the infections.

42:45

all of that. And so I had to take care of the other pieces as well, but I had to learn how to work with my nervous system so that I could stay healthy. And I've been, you know, recovered for 20 years. So that's the part I had to do to stay, um, to keep my energy, to recover my energy and keep it. And you have really good self care practices. Um, do you have a couple that you want to share that you find to be most helpful?

43:14

I love self-care and I love it when it's integrated into my life. Again, not now from a place of pressure where if I don't get to it, then I'm, I don't know, bad or wrong or not good. That it's like I get to do this. So it's a really a, you know, a shift for me, at least from how I was 20, 25 years ago. I wake up and I do body scan. I check in with my body. I do often

43:43

full meditation. I incorporate some breathing into that while I'm still in bed, you know, and I actually used to do a sitting meditation in the morning and then once I had my daughter she was up early so I learned to meditate silently if she was in bed with me. So that kind of just carried forward and so I just start my day with that that body scan meditation, some breathing. I really check in with my emotional side, you know, because the I can wake up in a

44:13

Challenging place, you know if I had bad dreams or just slept deeply But I wake up and really tune in to how am I feeling emotionally? You know, is there is there fear living in my system? Where is that fear? So I really want to connect with what isn't gonna serve me in my day right away and make space for it to be there I want to notice that it's there and make space for it I moved from that to you know taking my

44:42

any supplements I need to take to getting my water ready for the day. I move into, if you're able, I'm able to do workouts. So I move into a workout. I follow that by a sauna. And then I do lately, this is a newer regular practice after my sauna, I lay in the grass for as long as I can, depending on what time it is, usually five minutes.

45:10

And I just lay there and then again, it's another opportunity to check in with my body. How's it feeling? I try to get out and incorporate movement and time outside as much as possible throughout the day. I really pay attention to my water intake, getting my supplements in, eating well. For my body, everyone has different needs around that.

45:37

And then there's, you know, that's kind of the regular, there's lots of other little things I bring in at different times, but that's kind of a go-to. Those are my go-tos. That's rich. That's really good. Great illustration of how life takes practice. Life takes practice. That's what I learned. Yeah. Well, in part of it, probably I would imagine, I think life takes practice really did come from this idea of

46:07

Pressuring, you know, it came to me after my fatigue and it really came from this place of Never feeling like I was measuring up. And so instead of like meeting that feeling I kept demanding of myself Demanding myself to do things which led to that. It's like oh it doesn't take demanding it really takes meeting myself and allowing myself

46:37

And then you arrive in that place and that takes practice. And so that's really where it came from. Well, thank you so much for joining me today. This has been really great. I so appreciate you sharing all your knowledge and experience with us. So if people want to learn more about you and get on your list for Duryana and meditations and coaching, is it best to send them to LifeTakesPractice.com?

47:07

Yeah, they can find the links to the weekly Saturday meditation on lifetakespractice.com. And then Duryana is offered every four to six weeks. There's a new one that's offered and they can find the information on, on like life takes practice as well. And then you can reach out if, anyone is interested in, coaching through the site. Wonderful. And we'll drop that website below in the show notes.

47:36

All right. Well, thanks so much. Thank you. So if you have chronic fatigue, whether it's from long COVID or chronic fatigue syndrome, go ahead and click the link below to watch my latest master class, where I go deep into our four step process that has helped thousands of others resolve their symptoms naturally. After you watch that video, if you're interested in seeing if we're a good fit to work together, you can then get on a free call with me.

48:05

Alright, thanks so much. I'll see you over there.